In October 1931 before construction started on the railway, the railway company asked Canada to approve the transfer of more Makwa Sahgaiehcan reserve lands to build a town. Though it was not the railway company’s responsibility to build towns, they wanted to bring in as many moniyawak as possible.

The railway company didn’t consider the sacred Treaty 6 promises made to Cree people either. We tried to prevent our land from being taken, but Canada would not listen. We had no way to fight. We didn’t have money, and we couldn’t hire lawyers.

Canada gave the job of administering reserve lands to their Indian Agents to handle. They sent Indian Agents to the Makwa Sahgaiehcan reserve to get consent for the proposed town next to the proposed railway.

We had no say whether the railway went through, or whether the town would be built or not. In fact, we wrote to Canada saying no part of our reserve should be taken away. Canadaignored and silenced us.

In spite of Makwa Sahgaiehcan’s opposition, the railway company secretly sent surveyors to our reserve to survey the land where they wanted to the town to be built. Canada knew about this but did nothing to stop it. The railway company created the plans for the location of the town in the middle of our reserve. These plans were used by Canada and the Indian Agent to take the land. Canada sent Indian Agents to pressure the Band to give consent for the building of a town, even though we were opposed.

In 1932, the Indian Agent said he obtained the consent of the Band at a meeting. There is no evidence that the surrender was legitimate, and since we were writing letters saying we were opposed to the surrender, it was probably fake.

But the Indian Agent even said that the surrender was unanimous among the people on reserve.

There was another reason why Canada pushed for the taking of our reserve land for the building of the Town of Loon Lake. There were already many white squatters already illegally living on the reserve.

By 1930, 146 white settlers were illegally squatting on the lands we were promised for our reserve.

By 1934 Canada knew that there would be no railroad through our reserve. Canada should have given us our land back that was taken for the railway and kick the white squatters off reserve.

Instead, Canada surveyed the land it had illegally taken from our reserve and divided the land into plots to sell.

Settler Invasion, 1930

Canada started selling the plots to the white squatters. In many cases, the white squatters did not have the money to pay for the land they were illegally occupying.

Canada did not see this as a problem.

By 1939 the 28.29 acres illegally taken from our reserve were fully owned and controlled by the white squatters. Even if the squatters were delinquent in their payments for their plots of land, the squatters still got to keep the land they stole from Makwa Sahgaiehcan with Canadas’ help.

As soon as ownership of the land was transferred, the white squatters made their own Town of Loon Lake with private lots. Loon Lake made their own municipal government that collected taxes for the Town, and Canada helped them every step of the way.

Town of Loon Lake Hotel, 1935. Photo by Hinchsliff.

Even though none of the squatters had paid for the land they built their houses on, they still fought to increase the size of the town even more. They knew they could take even more land from our reserve, and Canada would help them.

• In 1932, they requested land to make the town bigger.
• In 1935, they requested land for the church.
• In 1939, they requested land to make the town bigger.
• In 1957, they requested land for the school.
• In 1958, they requested land to make the town bigger.
• In 1969 they took a piece of land for their sewage lagoon.

Each request for more land was approved by Canada.

No consent was secured from us. We did not agree. That didn’t matter. The Indian Agent lied.

The Indian Agent in charge of securing consent for the takings from us was the same person who said we unanimously agreed to the first takings in 1930.

To this day we can’t prove the Indian Agent was acting in the best interest of the Makwa Sahgaiehcan as he should have. At the time, and still to this day, many Makwa Sahgaiehcan people didn’t think the surrenders happened properly.

As compensation for these takings, Canada gave us a parcel of land to the east. This was a poor attempt at compensation.

The only piece of the townsite that Canada didn’t sell off was a plot of land that has been leased since the 1930s. This is the only piece of reserve land in the Town of Loon Lake today.